HIGH RISK is officially one week old. We appreciate everyone’s support and are shipping out orders as fast as we can. Buy your copy here. Plenty of folks have great things to say about HIGH RISK the album and live performances alike:

I’ve seen Dave Douglas three times in the last few years in Ottawa, each time at the helm of a different band. But only on Friday night did I see Douglas at the beginning of his show, literally jumping on the spot as the music pulsed, seemingly extra excited to get busy and join in with the sounds around him. read more >>>

Among brand-name contemporary jazz musicians, few have embraced change and experimentation like trumpeter Dave Douglas. For years he seemed to form a new group every few months, each with a particular mission or focus—though lately he’s settled down. On this year’s Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival (Blue Note) he flexes the mainstream chops at his core during an excellent set with tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and the collective Sound Prints (the recording is the latest in a series celebrating the music of saxophonist Wayne Shorter). His most recent project, however, finds him pushing boundaries again. read more >>>

Play it safe? Dave Douglas wouldn’t dream of it.

Artistically, that is. The 52-year-old New Yorker might well be one of those drivers who never lets his gas drop below a quarter-tank, or a diner who always reserves. But with a trumpet in his hands, and a project in his head, Douglas is definitely a risk-taker.

To start somewhere, let’s take his new band and its debut album, to be released next week. Both are called — what else — High Risk. read more >>>

Dave Douglas is a well-established jazz player who has been an active performer since the mid-’80s and who has recorded with a number of influential ensembles, including John Zorn‘s Masada Quartet and his own Balkan music group, Tiny Bell Trio. Zach Saginaw—who records under his middle name, Shigeto—composes lightly psychedelic instrumental hip-hop and has released a number of records via the label Ghostly International. The pair first met last year, via a Red Bull Music Academy event that paired musicians—Nels Cline, Wadada Leo Smith, Petra Haden, among others—in a series of solo and duet improvisations. And while they aren’t necessarily obvious collaborators, the two hit it off. read more >>>

Nels Cline knows a thing or two. Whether the Wilco guitarist and master improviser had any sort of larger plan in mind when he hooked trumpeter Dave Douglas up with electronic musician Zachary Saginaw is up for debate, but what was initially an impromptu pairing has become a full-blown band—and you can hear that band, High Risk, at the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival this weekend. read more >>>

Music via electrodes is nothing new to trumpeter Dave Douglas. He’s blended jazz with electronic music before and the results were about as consistently good as anything else he had recorded. Freak In was especially caustic mix, one that rewarded those who took the plunge and punished those who had not kept up on contemporary jazz (my boss, hearing it come out of my work computer, told me that it wasn’t music). High Risk, Douglas’ collaboration with bassist Jonathan Maron, drummer Mark Guiliana, and electronic musician Shigeto, walks closer to the heels of Douglas’s Keystone project. read more >>>

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We’re pumped that Pitchfork has taken notice of Dave Douglas’ new release High Risk. Head over there to check an exclusive stream of “First Things First.” Don’t forget to pre-order your copy of High Risk at the GLM Store. We have CD’s, limited edition LP’s, and digital copies available. Buy now.

Greenleaf co-founder Dave Douglas is rarely never idle. This week might seem jam packed with announcements, but it’s just another week here at Greenleaf Music. We’re proud to announce a new album of Dave’s called High Risk that will be released on June 23rd on Greenleaf. It features the personalities of producer/beat maker SHIGETO, drummer Mark Guiliana, and electric bassist Jonathan Maron exploring electronic improvisations based on compositions from Dave’s pen. Listen to Molten Sunshine and Cardinals below. The mix of interaction, improvisation and post production on High Risk is refreshingly easy to listen to, and delightfully escapes category. Is it electronic music? Jazz music? Trumpet Music? We can’t say, but we can assure you it’s good music.

At the same time, another project Dave has been working on with long time collaborator Joe Lovano called Sound Prints released their very first album as a group on Tuesday named “Live at Monterey Jazz Fest.” This record, available on Blue Note Records, features veteran drummer Joey Baron, bassist (and Greenleaf Artist) Linda Oh and pianist Lawrence Fields. The record is for sale at both iTunes and Amazon, and also available to stream on a variety of services here.

We also can’t forget the Serial Sessions, the 12-track album Dave recorded and produced this year exclusively for Greenleaf Music Subscribers. Each month we release a fresh track from the session to our subscribers (available as an MP3 or hi-res wave download, and on our streaming Cloud Player) and March’s track is called Hypatia. Trombonist Ryan Keberle (who released the knockout record Into the Zone last year) plays beautifully on this track and also weighs in here:

In some ways, writing about this most recent Serial release, “Hypatia,” a tune written by Dave Douglas in homage to Wayne Shorter, is easy for me. There are seemingly endless things to get excited about when talking about Dave Douglas, one of my heroes and living inspirations, whose composition captures everything we as jazz musicians love about the master composer and improvisor, Wayne Shorter. An undeniable melody, an unorthodox chord progression that somehow manages to function in beautiful ways, plus the room for personal improvisatory expression within the framework of a cohesive performance by the band.

If you are a Subscriber feel free to download the Hi-Res WAV track or MP3 version here. If you are not a Subscriber, or you don’t know about the Subscriber Series, click here to learn more.

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For almost twenty years, saxophonist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Dave Douglas have been prime moving forces in the jazz scene, their paths crossing often on stage and occasionally on record. Douglas appears on Lovano’s 2001 Blue Note album Flights of Fancy: Trio Fascination Edition Two and they overlapped as members of the SFJAZZ Collective for three seasons during which the band performed the repertoire of Thelonious Monk, McCoy Tyner, and their mutual touchstone: saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter.

However, the two had yet to find the “proper balance of personnel,” as Douglas puts it, to form a group of their own until they assembled pianist Lawrence Fields, bassist Linda Oh and veteran downtown drummer Joey Baron in 2011. Now, a few years and over 50 gigs later, their band Sound Prints will release their debut Live At Monterey Jazz Festivalon Blue Note Records.

We’re excited to release our next creation to the wild! Donny McCaslin’s ‘Fast Future’ is officially released today. Check out a great review from All About Jazz and an interview with some insight into Donny’s process at WBUR in Boston. Get your copy from the Greenleaf Music Online Store now!

Take a peek at the EPK and the live cut from the 55 Bar to get another taste of this great record.

Donny will be touring throughout the US and Canada, don’t miss the chance to see him live!

Label Director Dave Douglas debuts his new project HIGH RISK featuring SHIGETO at Trinosophes in Detroit on Wednesday, April 1. Detroiters and Ann Arborers come on through. Check out a track below, album release on June 23rd, 2015!

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Something I am genuinely thrilled to be working on! Starting a new band called High Risk, and finishing the record in these next weeks. I can’t wait to share it with you. It’s new vision of where improvisation and electronics can go. I wrote a bunch of new music and developed it with these three brilliant artists, and the engineer Geoff Countryman.